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peanut butter

Another day, another trendy organic food brand gobbled up by a large food conglomerate. This time it’s nut butter company Justin’s out of Boulder, CO, which was just bought by Hormel Foods– maker of Skippy peanut butter — for $286 million. [More]

An Oregon company issued a recall for 12 different types of nut butter as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigates 11 salmonella-related illnesses in nine states that may be linked to the spreads. [More]

When it comes to peanut butter, the great war wages on between chunky-lovers and smooth-o-philes, but one thing both sides of that battle can agree on is that peanut butter should not contain metal shavings of any sort. [More]

If you have a tough time making it through lunch because your morning cup of coffee just isn’t enough, one Massachusetts company says it has the perfect product — caffeinated peanut butter that packs a punch equal to a cup of coffee in just one tablespoon. No more sleeping through that PB&J. [More]

Remember the massive outbreak of salmonella in peanut butter? No, not the one earlier this year, or the one in 2012, or the one in 2007. We mean the one in 2008, where peanut butter shipped from the Peanut Corporation of America was linked to more than 700 illnesses and nine known deaths. Five years after the company’s cartoonish terribleness was revealed, three executives were put on trial for knowingly distributing contaminated food to the American public. [More]

Do you remember what you ate eight years ago? The government does. Maybe. People who filed recall claims for Peter Pan or Great Value (Walmart) peanut butters that were recalled in 2007 received a letter this week notifying them that they were victims of a crime. A crime? Yes, ConAgra Foods may face misdemeanor charges for its role in a salmonella outbreak that made hundreds of people ill. [More]

It’s time to head to the pantry and check your jars of almond and peanut butters. Products sold under the brands of Arrowhead Farms and Maranatha, and private-label products sold in Kroger, Safeway, Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods stores may be contaminated with salmonella, and consumers should dispose of them and seek a refund or replacement. [More]

Yesterday we told you that Sunland Foods Inc., the peanut butter plant behind the Great Peanut Butter Recall of 2012, was being sold at a bankruptcy auction. Sure, you could say that makes the company the big loser in peanut-gate. But today we learned the real losers are all the lovers of the creamy, nutty food. Why? Because the company is dumping 950,000 jars of safe, edible peanut butter into a New Mexico landfill following a dispute with Costco. [More]

Remember the Great Peanut Butter Recall of 2012? We learned that natural peanut butter (the kind that usually contains just nuts and maybe some salt) sold under a huge variety of brands all came from a New Mexico company called Sunland Foods. We were sad to learn that Sunland didn’t make it through the aftermath of that recall, closing in the fall of 2013. Now the plant will reopen with a new owner. It’s just not clear yet who that will be. [More]

Peanut butter isn’t the world’s most perfect food, but it’s close. So I’m always suspicious of any product in the peanut butter section that includes ingredients other than peanuts and salt. By that standard, Jif Whips are especially blasphemous, since it contains a generous helping of sugar and is advertised as being smoother and easier to spread than regular old peanut butter. [More]

Does that last bit of mayonnaise or peanut butter at the bottom of a jar really bother you? I usually hand the jar over to my dog and let her take care of it, but for some reason not everyone has a dog. That’s why some entrepreneurs have harnessed the technology behind deodorant sticks to eliminate this problem. [More]

Mary Rose happened to notice that her latest jar of Jif reduced fat peanut butter spread was a little lighter than usual. No, it was because the jar itself had lost some weight. Two ounces, or 11% of the total contents of the jar, to be exact. [More]

Ed sent us these chocolate bunny photos after lunchtime on Monday, which we’re assuming means that he bought them on post-Easter clearance. Even if he did, that doesn’t give Russel Stover an excuse to sell him a skimpy bunny with a meager amount of peanut butter inside. [More]

Maybe it’s just the refreshing feeling of a brand new year, but this week has already seen a lot of action when it comes to companies buying other companies/brands. Yesterday Avis announced it was buying Zipcar, and today Hormel says it’s handing over $700 million to buy Skippy peanut butter from Unilever. [More]

Kate was confused at the grocery store. Side by side on the shelf were regular old Jif peanut butter and Jif’s “natural” peanut butter. Only the “natural” stuff was labeled “peanut butter spread,” while the standard, presumably less natural, Jif got to call itself peanut butter. “It makes me wonder, what about ‘natural’ makes it less than true peanut butter?” she wrote to us. “Why does it need to be called ‘peanut butter spread’, when traditional, sugar filled, [Jif] can be called ‘peanut butter’? Shouldn’t the natural product version be truer to the genuine article?” That would be the intuitive answer, wouldn’t it? It’s the requirements of the Food and Drug Administration that keep the “natural” variety of Jif from being declared plain old peanut butter. Here’s the relevant part of the FDA standards for peanut butter:[More]

The Great Peanut Butter Recall of 2012 is now the Great Peanut Recall of 2012. What began with salmonella illnesses traced back to a few varieties at Trader Joe’s has expanded to include foods including peanuts processed by Sunland, but made by a variety of manufacturers. These products include candy, ice cream, and other tasty peanut-including treats. [More]

The Great Peanut Butter Recall of 2012 started relatively small, with Valencia peanut butter sold at Trader Joe’s. Thirty individuals in nineteen different states became ill from salmonellosis, and the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified that product as the likely source of the infections. Sunland, the company that actually manufactures peanut butter sold under the Trader Joe’s label, took the precaution of recalling other products manufactured on the same product line during the same period. That includes products sold under Sunland’s own label, as well as 15 other store and niche brands. [More]